With the launch of Exchange 2010 supposedly only days or weeks away, it’s perhaps time to ask the question, who is going to use it?
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that now the work is done on Exchange 2010 and it has the sign off, that it will be released soon. Especially as the Microsoft Exchange Connections coming up in November 9-12th in Las Vegas. A betting man wouldn’t put money on it not happening…
From the feedback seen so far Exchange 2010 is an excellent improvement on the previous versions. It offers much in the way of security, compliance and reliability. But it does come with the inevitable Microsoft complications. Bearing in mind the complexity and expense of migrating to Exchange 2010, it begs the question, who is going to do it?
The economy has yet to recover and confidence has yet to be instilled. Money is still tight and purse strings locked firmly shut. So who is going to spend a considerable amount of time and money on an infrastructure they probably already have?
Organizations who already have a version of Exchange are going to need new operating systems, in Server 2008, probably new hardware to run it. Considerable new IT infrastructure to support the new Exchange features and a team to install, configure, then manage it.
Likely adopters are going to be those companies who have a bit of money in the IT budget and who are on versions of Exchange 2003 and below. They are most likely to be prepared for renewal or the software, hardware and training needs that Exchange 2010 demands.
Not only are there significant hardware and software demands for a roll out of this platform, there are bound to be problems with integrating it with third party software and solutions. Those organizations with firewalls and anti-virus are going to be extra careful about integrating the new system. Also those custom applications that interface with exchange may need to be rewritten in order to work.
We in IT tend to give Microsoft some grief about how difficult their programs are to integrate into existing infrastructures. It can be a bit unfair though as I’m sure they don’t set out to cause trouble. They want to make things better, but by doing so they break a few rules and existing protocols.
Time will tell whether the move to Exchange 2010 will be a rising tide or a trickling stream. I would guess it would be somewhere in the middle, but only once the economy and overall prospects have picked up and those purse strings loosened a bit. After all, if the current version is working okay, why upgrade right now?
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